EM Oeun
Pseudonym: TCCP-28
Cases: Case 002/01
Category: Civil Party
Background and role
Early life and medical training
As a child, Em Oeun lived with his great uncle, who was a physician in Phnom Penh and gave him basic medical training.
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After the return to his village, the Khmer Rouge learned about his skills and asked him to join the movement.
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They send him to a medical training in Vietnam.
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Afterwards he worked as a physician, under the supervision of Zone Secretary Khoem.
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Living Conditions in the Liberated Zones
Em Oeun stated that his village was part of the “Khmer Rouge liberated area”.
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In the 1960s this meant that the population was grouped into cooperatives for mutual assisted farming, and “had to listen to the Party”. Around 1970, Khmer Rouge started to separate people into different groups, of which some enjoyed full rights, others not. Young people were classified as progressives who had to obey any instructions.
If the Party wanted them to perform the duties in the Revolution, these people had to do because they -- they had no right (…) If they had to leave their parent, they had to; they had no choice. (…) if they protest, if they denied or refused to obey the orders, they would be considered as the enemies or adversaries.
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Em Oeon belonged to Nationalist Youth League since 1973.
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He became a Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) member in 1975.
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Evacuation of Phnom Penh
In April 1975, Em Oeun saw many evacuees coming from Phnom Penh, who were referred to as “17 April people”.
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After a while, villagers were asked to move in together with their relatives, to empty houses for the evacuees.
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The Trial Chamber referred to Em Oeun´s testimony when establishing facts about the evacuation of Phnom Penh.
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Medical Training at Khmer Soviet Hospital
After April 1975, the Khmer Rouge started to consider some people as enemies, and the living conditions of certain groups of people became very different depending on their status.
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Em Oeun knew that he had to be vigilant, as his father was affiliated to the previous regime.
The Zone Secretary knew about Em Oeun’s father’s affiliation, but as he liked Em Oeun, he changed Em Oeun’s biography and gave him a new name
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so he could attend medical training at the Khmer-Soviet-Hospital in Phnom Penh, which served as CPK party hospital and was called 17 April Hospital.
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The course was conducted by specialized doctors, including trainers from Korea and China.
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There were around 1000 trainees from all over Cambodia consisting mostly of children of cadres.
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Em Oeun stated that he always lived in fear, as he often saw medical doctors or trainees being arrested, taken away on trucks and treated very badly.
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Political Training at Borei Keila
Em Oeun was assigned as a student leader with the task of disseminating information among other students.
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He attended political training sessions in Borei Keila which lasted around seven to ten days.
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Sessions were conducted by Nuon Chea, Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan,
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among others, and attended by around 1000 or 2000 people, mostly district committee chiefs or ministry workers.
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The curriculum of the course was intense, policies were explained in detail and often repeated.
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Pol Pot opened the training and explained the “Great Leap Forward” as the idea to transform Cambodia into a communist country without becoming a socialist country first.
After that, Nuon Chea, who was presented as Chairman of the People's Representative Assembly,
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talked about the infiltration by enemies of the revolution, referring to soldiers of the former regimes, intellectuals, and students, particularly those who graduated abroad.
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He mentioned names of traitors and indicated that anyone who would follow them would be executed.
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Khieu Samphan lectured on the importance of obeying the party, and he explained how to identify enemies.
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If you see people use clothes abundantly or use things unwisely and without being economical, these people would be the ones who were opposing the Party.
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Khieu Samphan also explained that it was necessary to give a lot of work to “New People”.
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…to find out who would be the infiltrated enemies, then we needed to look at those people performance. So, to do so, one needed to allow people to work more, eat less. (…) and if these individuals every now and then broke things, even needles (…) these people could also been perceived as enemies.
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Work at the Sector 20 Hospital
After nine months, Em Oeun was sent back to work in a hospital in Chea Klang in the Eastern Zone,
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as in late 1977 there were many injured combatants from the war at the Cambodian-Vietnamese border.
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He worked there as a medic and also trained others.
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In this scope he witnessed medical experiments at the hospital in Sector 20.
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He was ordered to bring medical trainees and let them observe operations carried out on sedated individuals.
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He was told that these individuals were spies, and he saw that “the whole body would be chopped or operated and cut into pieces and then put in a bag to be discarded”.
Claim as a Civil Party
After his testimony, Em Oeun made a statement of his suffering.
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He claimed that he suffered while working for the Khmer Rouge and eventually fled to the jungle with his wife in 1978.
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He further claimed that he was forced into marriage,
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and that his father was executed in 1974.
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The Trial Chamber and the Supreme Court Chamber accepted his testimony, noting that some chronological inconsistencies were due to the long time that passed and the traumatic nature of the events.
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